Jennifer Szalai at the New York Times:
This is a country for old men, says Samuel Moyn in his willfully provocative new book, “Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It.” Just take a look at some prominent members of our ruling class, including the octogenarians in Congress running for re-election, often in open defiance of constituents and actuarial tables.
When 81-year-old Joe Biden was still facing off against 78-year-old Donald Trump in the 2024 election, worried observers warned that the country’s future was being foreclosed by elderly delusions of grandeur. “It was sadly on trend to scapegoat old people for exerting a death grip on power,” Moyn writes in his introduction, before proceeding to scapegoat old people for exerting a death grip on power.
But the target of this book isn’t limited to a superannuated elite. What he calls the “oldigarchy” is propped up by seniors who vote in every “boring and off-cycle” election and “enjoy the most governmental benefits by a vast degree.” Moyn says that a mix of democracy, capitalism and longer life expectancy has created “new and insidious forms of elder rule.”
More here.
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